


Only Those Elements Time Cannot Wear

by AceQueenKing



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Feels, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghosts, House Naberrie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 22:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13773540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Kylo Ren seeks advice from the past in hopes of finding his future with Rey.





	Only Those Elements Time Cannot Wear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inthegrayworld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthegrayworld/gifts).



Varykino was, like most of grandfather's possessions, something that his mother did not touch with a pole. Like most things his mother hated, Kylo Ren loved Varykino.

Kylo Ren stood on an old, ivy covered balcony and ran his hands through the wood of a balcony older than himself, than his mother, than grandfather. It had been old even in grandfather's time, ivory hunted from animals that had been bred, born, and grown extinct long before grandmother or grandfather had taken their first steps. There was history here, and even if Kylo Ren had sworn not to be held to it, he never the less felt it, the strength of the wood, the things it had seen. All things had life in the force, and he could feel different moments along the current of the force between his fingers: a first kiss, a final parting, tension, declination, release. It had belonged to his family for centuries, and though he could not pull out individual memories, to know that thousands of women and men in grandmother’s line had held onto this estate, well – it was humbling. The past may be dead but none the less, there was pride to be drawn from Varykino, from what it had been to centuries of his family.

He did not have many fond memories of the lake house, though that had been his mother’s fault. They had only been there twice when he was a child, in the time when he had been Ben; they had stayed there with some new-found cousins. Great Aunt Sola, he remembered; she was a sad, older woman who fed him a variety of grape leaves filled with different mixes of foods inside: some tangy, salted meats and others bright, sweet fruits.  He had loved them, the variety of them; mother had barely nibbled at them but then mother had been so clearly ill at ease there. There were two younger women who had flittered over his mother, too. Their names were less distinct in Ben's mind and Kylo Ren had lost them entirely; they were mother's age, and, like his mother, focused wholly on politics. They did not care much for children and so Ben, in turn, had cared little for them.

But Sola had been different.

It was Sola who had first told him a bit about grandfather, about grandmother; she had held his little hand and walked him through these halls, telling him little stories about his grandma Padmé, how she had run and jumped here, how she had once dived straight into the water below from this roof, how she had once climbed all three of the towers on little more than a dare. She showed him where she had been nominated for her first electoral run, where grandmother had first told Sola of his mother's impending birth, and finally, she had taken him to the nursery his mother had been meant to sleep in as a baby, nervously noting that his grandfather had helped to prepare the items there - the wood-worn crib, the small, obviously home-made chair.

Through all of these stories, all Ben could think of was that he had never heard of either of these people.   He remembered too that Mother had not been happy, had yelled at Sola for this limited divulgence when she had found them there.  Mother had not wanted him to know this forbidden information, this unknown but not unloved relative. Funny, he thought, how those who cried freedom so often still limited other’s information to keep them from realizing their true potential.  He had not realized it at the time; Ben Solo had been a child after all.  Ben the child had instead cried, and his mother had kept him on his lap the rest of the trip, even as the women who fawned over her continued to talk to her about boring politics and Sola gave him occasional sad looks. That had been the end of the first visit.

The second visit had been only a few days later, when mother announced that they were leaving Naboo soon, now that the bad men had surrendered. He had been too young to know that his mother, a terrorist, had forced representatives of the legal government, the Empire, to surrender. She would be taking them back to Chandrila to set up a republic and Ben was young enough that he had thought this was a good thing. But first, they'd have one more family dinner, with Uncle Luke and Leia and the newfound relatives that mother was always on edge with. His hand gripped the railing with rage, remembering what had happened.

It was, as he could well remember, the last time he ever had Naboo food. Sola had snuck him bits of the wrapped leaves with guilt on her face. Mama had spoken little, and even Uncle Luke, who normally could get along with anyone (except, as Ben would one day discover, with Ben) kept looking between mama and the giggling women with a pinched mouth.

When Sola had handed his mother the deed to Varykino, his mother had been gracious, of course. But there had been no joy in her eyes, and they had never returned to see the Naberries or the old estate again. Great Aunt Sola had passed away before he had returned, and the cousins – he knew not where they were, nor did he care. Likely, he suspected, with mother’s terrorist regime.

And so the dusty old manor had fallen to Kylo Ren. As his mother was Rebel scum, he was the sole member of the family that could claim to be from a legitimate government and as such her assets had now passed to him, anyway. Ben had had no use for it, but Kylo Ren - well, he had a hope for it. Time would tell if he was being foolish. He'd left his contingent of First Order soldiers at Theed palace; he had learned that much from his mother, at least. They were only to disturb him if she would come.

He hoped she would, but he tried to put her out of his mind. She had slammed the door shut on their connection many times, no matter how often he had tried to tell her that he had only done what he had did for the good of the galaxy as a whole, and that she could reconsider joining him, that she could be special, at least to him. He was cast out, alone, adrift, and he was never so aware as he was now of all that he had the potential to lose unless she came to his side. He needed her, and being without her was becoming more unbearable by the minute – the ache he hadn’t known until he had first felt the absence of it, the cold silence of her end of the conversation leaving him feeling eternally struggling to breathe, as if he had been cast adrift into the stars without any life support.

No. She would come. He would not allow himself to think of the alternative. Instead, he gripped his hands on the terrace and tried to focus. He had come to Varykino for a reason; he would call forth grandfather, would unlock the wisdom that would lead Rey to his side. Father might have lured mother with his degeneracy, but from what few remained of his grandfather’s records, he’d had little problem seducing grandmother. They had married within a week of meeting as adults, and with considerable disadvantages: if a Jedi could love a senator when such a public relationship would be banned for both, then surely love could blossom between himself and the desert rat. It was only that he needed the _tools_ to bring her to his side.

Judging by what Snoke had told him, Vader had held every plan to educate his children, and, by extension, surely Kylo Ren as well, in the ways of the force. He had been rudely prevented from doing so by the Jedi. Kylo Ren would now rectify that mistake.  

He would have to be careful; summoning spirits, from what he had read in all the literature he'd found - which hadn't been much, grandfather had done perhaps too good a job wiping out Jedi heresies – suggested that such an ...arcane practice had considerable drawbacks, if not done right.  There were many spirits in so ancient a place, and to summon the right one - he took a deep breath, pulling out the small snippet of japor. It was fortuitous that his mother had never devoted herself to her Jedi studies; surely she would have done a better job of wiping out everything his grandfather had touched. That he could take it from grandmother's grave - well - he had expected it to be harder, all things considered.

He wrapped his fingers around it, careful not to damage the thin leather cord. He had been fortuitous to find it, though it was doubtful anyone in the resistance would understand the significance of Tatooine sandstone in a Naboo queen's hands. Perhaps mother, but mother had made her feelings on family abundantly clear.

He closed his eyes and chanted, focusing on the feeling he wanted to inspire: love, life, happiness.

And then he saw her. He had never seen a picture of grandmother, but knew it must be he: there was the long, famed brown mane that Leia had inherited and Kylo Ren after her; there she was, swimming in the water outside Varykino; he saw her rise up from the water and smile; the vision faded and another came in, grandmother being wrapped in a shawl from what must surely have been a younger version of Sola, her hair not silver but the same chestnut brown. And then – there was grandfather, pulling her up from a boat, then grandfather again, so young! He still wore a padawan braid as Grandmother wrapped her hands around his back, whispered in his ear.

His vision blurred, the feelings he was bleeding in over-whelming. He moved through the time-stream, but it was difficult to control. The images coming faster, more singular: a wooden chair, freshly made; a droid helping his mother as she walked through the halls, her pregnant belly wide and sloping; grandfather, standing alone, a dark presence –somewhere. He did not know the building, gone too fast before he could even study it. He longed to reach out a hand, to ask them the questions of what he wished, but the nightsister who had taught him this technique had warned him that any attempt to change the past would lead to unforeseen consequences - and that was not his goal here. While mere months ago he might have wished for nothing so much as to change Grandfather's past, but he had moved on from that now.  The past was dead.

And so too were his hopes of finding anything. Perhaps the pendant had been too faded, perhaps he was too far gone to be able to evoke the past well enough to find what he needed. Frustratingly, the snippets told the same story he already knew: grandmother and grandfather met and within a week were married. _How_ that had happened was beyond him and it was beginning to look like it always will be. Disappointment flooded through him. It had not worked, merely bits of the past flooded his senses. He looked around him and realized the japor was still in his hand, and the floor was still as dirty and overgrown as it had been before his head landed on it. He groaned in frustrating and slammed his fist into the floor.

"I would not do that," a soft voice said; he looked over to find a man staring out over the railing. He had his arms folded in a way he had so often done without ever quite realizing the resemblance. "The past is dead, after all."

He sucked in a hot breath and scrambled to his feet; all those years – could it be? “Is it you? Grandfather?" Kylo Ren moving toward the railing. He stood to the side of the man and slowly compared them out of the side of his view; he had been told many things about grandfather, of course, but none had quite told him of how similar their faces had been - the same shape, the same long, flowing curls, the same eyes, though he knew he favored his mother’s coloring.

"Yes." The ghost turned toward him with a mouth pressed into a firm line. "Why do you call me, Ben? I have felt your distress from across the great dune sea."

"That is not my name, grandfather," Kylo Ren said, his mouth twitching none the less in the pleasure of being recognized, of being claimed.  "I am Kylo Ren."

"We are both what we are and what we were," he said, raising an eyebrow. "The past informs the present. But you have avoided my question."

"I need your advice," Ben countered, looking across the wide ocean of Naboo and trying to focus, to calm himself. "And not Jedi platitudes."

"You follow me too closely as it is," grandfather said. "Do not mistake darkness for power, Ben. It will leave you as soon as it finds another host, and there are always more."

"Do not mistake _me_ as interested in morality plays." He turned, irritated, toward grandfather, jabbing one finger in his direction. Grandfather, dead, did not even so much as raise an eyebrow at the display. A lightsaber, he thought, probably became far less threatening once one had passed away. "I do not need assistance in philosophy."

Grandfather said nothing, his after-image perfectly still. Still, he could feel the wind whipping around the ghost. He debated what he wanted to say, but his heart overruled his thoughts, turning toward Ben. “Why didn’t you come earlier?” He asked softly, then immediately felt annoyance at himself for asking. It was still Ben who had longed for him, Ben for whom this mattered – and yet it was still the first words on his lips, when he was not meant to be weak. He snarled.

Vader was silent a moment, then turned toward him. “It takes great sacrifice to interfere in the world. There are _costs._ My time on this plane is limited. But know my love for you is not,” the ghost said, reaching one hand out in conciliation that he did not need and resting it on his own. He suspected the ghost would squeeze it, had grandfather had any ability to.  “Perhaps I should have come earlier, perhaps things would not be…”

The ghost trailed off. They both stared out at the sea, which he doubted had changed much in the years between them. Naboo was a unique planet thanks to its cold core, flooded in water, and yet – it was an odd sight, to Ben. He had grown up mostly on star-ships, had had little time for natural beauty. And from what he knew of grandfather, well – Tatooine held no such reserves. He doubted Jakku did either. Would she enjoy the water? He shook his head. He could not focus on the past; he had to focus on the future.

"There's a girl." He said, staring outward. He kept his voice steady, in control.

"A girl?" Anakin Skywalker all but laughed and Kylo Ren frowned in annoyance. Grandfather was nothing like what Snoke had said. "You pulled me from the land beyond the third star for _love advice_?" He shook his head. "You are truly a Skywalker, boy."

"Indeed," he said, annoyed.  There was little sound between them but the sound of the waves lapping on the shore. “I had not thought you would feel exactly the same as Luke, but clearly both of you would rather I die alone.”

That hit its mark; the ghost’s face faltered. Quietly, grandfather said: “I wish you had made up before…”

“I don’t. Your son didn’t want to reconcile either.”

“Ben – “  
  
“No.” He threw his arm out, stopping the conversation from going in a direction he did not wish to talk about. “ _He_ is not important here. Not to me. Now tell me: How do I make a girl like me?" He sounded younger than he was, he knew, and hated it; if grandfather heard the waver that betrayed Kylo Ren, he didn't comment on it, though he smiled. "She is—she is little better than a womp rat, her politics are anathema to me, but – I – I—“

"You love her," Grandfather said. He opened his mouth to protest, but, examining his feelings, knew it was true.

"Yes. But she doesn't..." He gripped the railing harder, thinking, as he had for many nights, of how Rey had turned down his offer. "How do I MAKE her love me? Snoke told me that in darkness such was possible-"

"Oh, Ben. You _can't_." The ghost raised an eyebrow. “Love not willingly given is not love at all. I have learned that the hard way – twice. Forcing her to follow you will only breed resentment. If you take my word on nothing else, take it on that.”

“I am not asking to control her mind,” he seethed. “What I need is – _how do I turn her to my side_? She will not listen! She has chosen death instead of _me_! I could teach her and she-she refuses!”

"Darkness leads only to being alone," Grandfather said, his voice so shallow a whisper Kylo Ren doubted he could hear it without the force. But the Force he had, in spades, for all that it mattered. He snarled at grandfather; he had tried to seek him at considerable cost, and this-this is how he treated him? More Jedi platitudes? Kylo Ren would have thought that of all people, Darth Vader would know the _true_ cost of the Jedi’s teachings.

"What do you want me to do, grandfather?” He snarled. “Drop to my knees and demand to become a Jedi? You of all people should know where that road leads."

"No," Grandfather said calmly, which made Kylo Ren all the more irritated. "You didn’t want philosophies, and I will give you none. If you want to gain her heart, listen to her. Spend time with her. _Treat her as a person_."

"That's it?!" He snarled. "Hardly wisdom from beyond the ages.  You came all the way from the land of the dead for advice, and this is what you give me?" He scorned. “I thought you were special. I thought I was– “

Anakin reached out with one hand and placed it on Kylo Ren’s shoulder. "Ben, you have followed others for years, myself included. If you truly love her—then you will need to walk your own path. I suspect you know that much already."

He said nothing, staring out into the oceans. Rey was not likely to listen to him, he knew that. This was for nothing. Everything he had gathered to come here - once more, the past had left him down.

"You will have the chance to talk to her soon enough," Anakin said, tapping on his shoulder. "Try to be positive. And one last thing: don't - _don't_ talk about sand. Ever."

He raised his eyes toward grandfather to ask why, but he was gone.

He heard the sound of a lightsaber activating behind him and turned; somehow, he was unsurprised to find Rey. She was wearing a slim bodysuit that did nothing to hide how lovely she was, but he ignored that in favor of staring at the threat of the weapon in front of her.

“Please turn that off,” he said, quietly, and was gratified that she did. They both stood staring at one another, obviously neither of them quite sure how to talk to the other. He thought of grandfather’s advice and listened. She said nothing for a long moment, then took a hesitant step forward.

"Ben?" She sounded confused, and he was confused enough himself not to bother chastising her for using the wrong name.

"Rey," he said. He reached out a hand, and she grasped it, though neither of them seemed quite certain if that was the right thing to do. "Why are you here?"

"I had a dream - there was a man, but he looked like Luke and I thought…“She shook her head. "Was that you? Did you bring me here?”

 _Oh, I will tell her soon, will I grandfather?_ He thought; the ghost did not reappear. But Kylo Ren was certain, somehow, that he was listening. And perhaps –perhaps that advice had been meant for more than simply generic thought. Kylo Ren had the thought that he was being manipulated, but he did not quite mind in this instance.

"No, but, I was thinking of you..." He pressed his lips together. "I regret that our last encounter ended so poorly. Can we...talk?"

She narrowed her eyes and for a moment neither of them spoke.

Then she swallowed and looked up at him: "Is this a trap?"

"No."

"Then yes." She gestured toward the inside of the veranda and Ben went with her, looking one last time toward the veranda’s edge.

If grandfather remained, he showed no sign of himself, and perhaps that was for the best.

The past was over now. Now he had Rey with him, and, if he could come up with the right words, perhaps grandmother and grandfather’s wedding on the veranda would not be the last in the hallowed halls of Varykino.


End file.
